Casino Not Paying Jackpot

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FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - Next time your friend or significant other asks if they can give it a try at a slot machine that you’ve supplied money for, think again — they could end up leaving with your $100,000 jackpot.

Atlantic City casino refuses to pay out $1.5M jackpot, claims deck of unshuffled cards to blame. Plaintiff could not identify any particular act of those players that actually constituted. Katrina Bookman captured national attention last year when she played a 'Sphinx Slot Machine' at Resorts World Casino in Queens, New York, and it appeared as though she'd won $43 million - which. A Maryland woman said she thought she was leaving the casino Friday thousands of dollars richer after hitting the jackpot on the slot machine — but a typo by the casino staff left her with. Not surprisingly, casino operators are suspicious of all winners. If the administration has the slightest doubt about the fairness of the winnings, they freeze the payment for an investigation. If we are talking about a huge amount, sometimes a minor violation of the rules is enough to make the casino refuse to pay the jackpot out.

Gambler Jan Flato put $50 in a slot machine at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Fort Lauderdale, hoping for a chance to win $100,000

At one point, Flato let his friend, 35-year-old Marina Navarro, push the button for luck.

Then, suddenly, lights flashed and the pay line showed that he had won the $100,000 jackpot… or so he thought.

Once managers of the casino analyzed the video, it showed that Navarro pushed the button, which made her the rightful winner of the jackpot.

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Seminole spokesman Gary Bitner couldn’t say much, but did reiterate the rule when it comes to gambling: “The person who pushes a slot machine button or pulls the arm is the person who wins the jackpot.”

Not only did Flato lose the cash he put into the machine, but he has barely heard from Navarro since she walked out that night with the jackpot. That night, she even asked armed security to keep an eye on Flato as she walked out.

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“I said, ‘Marina, what are you doing?’ and she gets up and walks out,” Flato said.

Weeks later, she allegedly sent Flato a text message asking, “Still hate me?” He responded, “How could you do that to me?” And her response? “I miss you.”

Flato said he is still furious about what happened. But now, he has an important message for other slot players: “Don’t ever let them touch the button, don’t even tell them to touch anything for luck, because they can do what Marina did to me,” Flato said.

Navarro said Flato became distressed when they found out the jackpot wasn’t his. “Jan all of a sudden went ballistic,” she said. “He started screaming in front of everybody.”

Navarro then said Flato sent her threatening text messages. One message read, “Having me as an enemy ….not good,” followed by “We’ll [see] who made the Big mistake. It won’t be me.”

Navarro said she offered Flato some of the winnings, but after the texts he sent, she rescinded the offer.

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The cards are always stacked in favor of the casino. Casinos exist for one reason, and one reason alone: to take your money. They do it legally, even if it's under cloudy circumstances.

Consider the case of an Alabama man who put $5 into an electronic bingo machine at the Wind Creek Casino in Montgomery, Alabama. The casino is on tribal land operated by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. To the gambler's amazement, 'several noises, lights, and sirens were activated' when the machine announced that Jerry Rape had hit The Big One. The bingo machine indicated a jackpot of $459,000, then $918,000, and finally settled on a 'payout multiplier' of $1,377,000, according to the gambler's lawsuit.

The casino took Rape's payout ticket and made him wait for about 24 hours before saying no dice. He wasn't getting the monster payout. The machine, he was told by the tribe's casino, had 'malfunctioned.' (PDF)

It gets worse

The gambler sued the casino in the tribal court of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. But the suit was dismissed. The court declared that sovereign immunity prevailed—that the tribe was an independent nation and immune from being sued.

'They said they were immune to any kind of fraud that I made in the complaint,' the gambler's attorney, Matt Abbott, told Ars in a telephone interview. 'They said rules don't apply to them, [and] 'have a nice day.'

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Unable to lodge a claim in tribal court, Rape rolled the dice with Alabama's state courts and sued the tribe there. On Friday, seven years after Rape thought he had hit the jackpot, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that Rape could not sue the tribe in state court—the proper venue was tribal court. That's because the Poarch Band of Creek Indians is a nation of itself, and that's where disputes occurring on that land should be litigated, the court found.

The Alabama high court noted that it found itself in a 'Catch-22' of sorts. It said it couldn't decide the dispute even if the tribe wasn't entitled to sovereign immunity.

'The activity out of which Rape's claim arose, however, was gambling. If it occurred on land within the regulatory and adjudicative jurisdiction of the State of Alabama, that activity was illegal. Specifically, that land is located in Elmore County and, therefore, is not located in one of the counties in Alabama where even the game commonly and traditionally known as bingo is permitted,' the court ruled. (PDF)

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It is well established that this Court will not aid a plaintiff seeking to recover under an illegal contract but, instead, will simply leave the parties where it finds them.

Casino Not Paying Jackpot

This is the third time we've seen a gambler hit an enormous jackpot only to be told that it won't be paid because the jackpot was a result of an electronic 'malfunction.'

Meanwhile, the Alabama gambler's attorney, Abbott, told Ars that his client's legal avenues have now been exhausted. 'It's over,' he said.

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The tribe said the Alabama high court did the right thing. 'We are pleased that the Court affirmed the ruling in favor of the Tribe,' spokeswoman Sharon Delmar said.